I left Canada fifteen years ago, but what you describe is how it was then as well. I wrote a college paper about the rise of private cash healthcare in Canada. I remember a few places in Toronto doing well while I still lived there.

These are the exact problems that our US politicians pushing for nationalized healthcare never want to talk about. Unfortunately we have a large number of people, predominantly younger, who don't WANT to hear this kind of information either. There is a real fear here that we will soon lose what has made US medicine very good in many ways.
Is there room for improvement? Oh yes. That is what I am hoping to learn more about with this thread. What are the best/worst parts of systems, and what can be taken/modified/dropped to make a better system.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion.

They tax cigarettes and sugary foods to incentivize people to stay away from them. What are they doing then when they want to over tax your wages?

@Mickey Trying to tax yourself into prosperity is like standing in a bucket and trying to lift it.Taxing is never the answer. You soon run out of big fish to steal from.

The only answer is the free market in the entire system and allow only market forces control pricing, not the Cronyism people think is a free market today.

@EdNason, fair enough. What do you think about police and fire services? Do you think they should be privatized? Or, are they working well enough? There are always problems, so there probably isn't a perfect fix for anything.

The insurance industry is a great example of a terrible problem in capitalism. Do you remember why the industry started? They provide ZERO healthcare, but siphon off a ton of the money from healthcare. My insurance was $7,000 in premiums with a $7000 deductible. I haven't spent $14000 on healthcare in the last 30 years, let alone 1 year. Now, obviously that's not all profit to the insurance company since I have to overpay for people who don't pay anything to have healthcare. BUT, insurance industry ceos are making many millions of dollars per year, and they're not the only ones. Follow the money. It's astounding. All while, so many doctors are being pinched they're going out of business, and that's after they tried raising their prices so they could counter the cuts the insurance industry imposed on them. Premiums are skyrocketing. Look at how much we pay in taxes and in insurance. We all know Government is bad, but capitalism with no social responsibility is also bad. I depart from the Republicans on this topic. I don't believe runaway greed is good for society at any level. Don't get me wrong, socialism is just as greedy and just as elite. They're selling an illusion. But, I'd like to think my conservative friends will drop the illusion that greed is god--err, I mean good.

Something's not working?

@EdNason, sensible responses. And, I don't see anything I disagree with. But, we didn't really address the system is NOT working right now. It's not working, so we presumably look to do SOMETHING differently. I also think the market is the solution, but NOT the market on steroid-greed. Somewhere in there is a reasonable answer. But, between the single payer lobby and the insurance lobby, the conversation isn't even happening. When you pay for a $2500 dollar bed per day in a hospital, that's not healthcare you're paying for. You're paying for the bureaucracy of healthcare and you're paying for SOMEONE'S greed. Until the capitalist side addresses that problem, people on the left aren't going to listen.

You know, another problem is housing insurance cost in the corporate world. It's like this 'entitlement' in people's heads, but it's not. IT'S SALARY. It's part of your compensation package. So, it's not the businesses who are paying for the insurance--it's the employees. They just don't realize it because they've been snowed. The whole system is botched. It seems like we could simply go back in history to a time when it worked and copy THAT, but then it would require the greedy to turn loose of their grip on everyone's money. Healthcare is a real problem, but who is REALLY prepared to fix it? Not the republicans, not the democrats, not Trump--Nobody really wants to fix it, except Americans who loathe conflict so much they'll serve cruel masters.

I agree that the police, etc. analogy is not a good one for that very reason, but I was reading a post elsewhere with that argument so I brought it here for actual intelligible discussion.

I do have to wonder if restricting Gov involvement in this to just the more emergency related situations would work or not. If so, I wonder how restrictive it would need to be before it gets to that level of involvement where the police, fire fighter analogy would work. Would it be restructuring ambulance services? Types of care available at Gov run institutions? Is it something that could never work?

Thanks for participating in this with me.

Beating the insurance industry will absolutely make things better, but they'll just pay off whoever is hitting them hardest.